Indians leave Chain of Lakes Park for last time

Thursday

Mar 27, 2008 at 12:01 AMMar 27, 2008 at 11:40 AM

Manager Eric Wedge climbed into the front seat and said, “Let’s go.” With those words and a final belch of exhaust fumes Thursday, the Indians team bus lurched forward and pulled out of Winter Haven for the last time. The Indians will move into a new facility in Goodyear, Ariz., next spring.

Andy Call

Manager Eric Wedge climbed into the front seat and said, “Let’s go.” With those words and a final belch of exhaust fumes Thursday, the Indians team bus lurched forward and pulled out of Winter Haven for the last time.

A few fans who had lagged behind waved as the bus, with a police escort, inched out of Chain of Lakes Park. The final game in Winter Haven, the team’s spring training home since 1993, ended at 4:45 p.m. The Indians left on a losing note, a 9-7, 10-inning defeat at the hands of Tampa Bay.

The Indians will move into a new facility in Goodyear, Ariz., next spring. The team will continue to occupy the Winter Haven facility until August, allowing for extended spring training and a Gulf Coast League season for its youngest prospects.

“I’ve spent a lot of time here as a player and a manager,” said Wedge, a catcher for Boston when the Red Sox trained in Winter Haven. “I’ve seen a lot of good people coming through here. It’s always bittersweet. I’m looking forward to Arizona, but I’ll miss Winter Haven a bit.”

The move to Arizona will give the Indians a place where its players can live and work out all year. It will also help produce additional revenue for a franchise without the large bankroll of some of its competitors.

General Manager Mark Shapiro was still working in the club’s minor-league office when he arrived in Winter Haven for the first time.

“It’s 16 years, 16 springs, for me personally, and probably 1,000 days of my life,” Shapiro said. “Winter Haven was a home at a time we needed it and had no place else to go. But with the realities of the game, in which spring training facilities can be used as a resource, Goodyear affords us that. It’s about getting a state of the art facility that is one more opportunity for us to incrementally begin to bridge resource gaps and payroll gaps.

“The facility out there will produce a morale boost for us from the day we walk into it.”

Most Indians players were excited to simply get the season under way, after two exhibition games this weekend in Atlanta. They carried suitcases out of rental cars and into the clubhouse. They dropped gloves and shoes into boxes that were loaded onto a moving truck bound for Cleveland.

Few players waxed nostalgic at the demise of the aging facility. Poor outfield drainage would make the ground soft after a heavy rain, leading both Cleveland and Tampa Bay to scratch their starting center fielders from a game earlier this spring. The infield was not always up to big-league standards, either.

“The infield used to be like a parking lot,” first baseman Ryan Garko said. “Now it’s just dangerous.”

C.C. Sabathia did not, as he had threatened, “take a bat to the place” on the last day.

Still, for all its shortcomings, Chain of Lakes did have an “old school” charm. The people were welcoming and enthusiastic. Fans who arrived from Ohio enjoyed kinder, gentler weather than what they had left.

Prior to the game, Wedge and pitcher Jake Westbrook presented members of the Winter Haven stadium grounds crew with jerseys.

Mary Kay Scott, one of the longtime ushers at the ballpark, threw out one of the ceremonial first pitches. Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Feller threw out another, tipping his hat as he stepped to the microphone located between the mound and home plate.

“We want to thank all you people here,” Feller said. “We’re going to miss all of you. It’s not too far to Arizona. See you in Goodyear in the spring.”